


Rain Unseen

by author-anonymous (modaccount)



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: 8th year, Community: hp_drizzle, HP Drizzle Fest 2019, M/M, Music, Rain
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-02
Updated: 2019-09-02
Packaged: 2020-04-23 04:32:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,472
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19143637
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/modaccount/pseuds/author-anonymous
Summary: It’s always Malfoy, whenever he least expects it.





	Rain Unseen

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you to my absolutely lovely beta Gigi who I owe the world to!

Harry categorizes his nights into two groups: nights of terror and nights of calm.

This is one of the calm nights, when his mind is quiet but his body itches with an unrivaled ferocity, silent but urging him to move. These are the nights when he has to walk.

Funnily enough, these are the nights people worry about him the most, when they find him folded into a dark corner of the castle or staring at a suit of armor, looking like his thoughts are still freshly mangled from the war. Funny, because on these nights he's okay.

He's not sad or scared, not angry or numb. He's just moving.

The castle is different at night — hungry, almost alive, with magic thrumming through the most unexpected places and sending pulses of energy through Harry’s feet. He’s tired, of course. There’s a scratching under his eyelids that burns when he holds them open too long, reminding him of the long hours of sleep he’s missed. He can feel himself slipping into that place that’s on the border of slumber, the one where his dream world melds with the hard contours of reality. The one that makes him wonder if it’s really so bad to live in dreams.

That’s why, when Harry first hears the music, he thinks maybe it’s just his mind playing tricks on him; a product of sleep deprivation and one too many screams left ringing through his head from the war.

He follows the sound, the lingering wisps that make their way towards him, running up and down, pattering and beating in equal measure.

There’s a classroom up ahead, its door slightly ajar. Harry’s not sure if there’s somebody inside playing the music or if he’ll enter to find only more stone, devoid of life and taunting him. Taunting him with that thin veil between sanity and insanity. After all, if there’s nobody in the room, it means the song is coming from his own mind, ringing behind his eyes.

And if there is, he’s not sure he wants to see who it is.

He doesn’t want them to stop or to break this beautiful illusion. So he sits against the wall and closes his eyes. He lets the music paint a picture onto the backs of his eyelids.

Grey streaks, rainy tears, running through a dark night. The wind, blowing ever so slightly, stirring up puddles along the ground that dance at the breeze.

He sits there while time weathers away, running his finger along a hash in the floor that wasn’t there before the war.

Listening, feeling. The music, the rain.

It washes over him like a blissful storm, and he wonders if there is such a thing.

It's almost like Harry himself, he reckons. Calm, like his mind is now, but moving -- insistently, ferociously.

It’s simple but angry, spring rain and thunderstorm. An enrapturing harmony that showers the world with water. Harry can even see color now, splashes of blue blotting out the grey rain, swirling around.

The music trails off.

Harry doesn’t want it to stop, so he presses closer against the cold wall, willing it onwards. As if the music has heard his thoughts, it starts up again, splashing against the walls in a torrent of sound.

Eventually, Harry stands up, suddenly realising this is far too beautiful to be a product of his imagination. It’s too clear, the melody swimming too fast and beautifully, too complex.

He’s never created something that majestic before, he thinks. He’s only destroyed, and now he needs to know who it is that’s playing the music.

Harry walks into the room slowly, trailing his hand across the wall, because it keeps him present. It keeps him here. Usually, he wouldn’t care about being present. He would let himself float off into a place he could never quite put his finger on.

This time, for some reason, the fluttering music gives him an urge to stay grounded.

When he finally sees who’s playing the music, Harry thinks his brain must be playing tricks on him again. It wouldn’t be the first time. Except then he realizes how fitting it is, because why wouldn’t it be Malfoy? It’s always Malfoy, whenever he least expects it.

Malfoy, with his eyes closed, playing like the world depends on it. And maybe his world does.

Harry quietly slips into the room, the way he’s mastered from the long nights wandering. He can’t make himself care that it’s Malfoy. At this point it’s merely another part of the world, simply another figure made out of colored shapes and lines.

Malfoy doesn’t notice Harry coming in. He keeps playing, and Harry wonders how he does it — pressing keys and turning the sound into rain, not even looking at where his fingers might fall.

Harry sits down against the wall, and when the music finally trails to a stop, the room feels oddly bereft.

“You’re really good,” Harry says quietly. He doesn’t mean to startle Malfoy, but he has to let him know that his music is more than music. Malfoy has to understand. Harry wonders if it’s magic, knows it could be.

Malfoy starts at the interruption, stiffens, and turns around. His face is still unguarded, as though all barriers were washed away by the rain, and his eyes are wide.

“Why are you here?” he asks, standing up and stepping away from the piano. He leans against the wall and stares down at Harry.

On any other day Harry might have been scared, with Malfoy craning over him, holding all the power.

But Harry can’t find it within himself to care, not when he’s heard the sound pouring out of Malfoy’s hands. He can’t imagine pain or danger falling from those same fingers that make rain. Maybe that’s naïve of him, because in theory, Harry knows that nothing is black and white. But the music has made him trust.

“I heard you playing,” Harry shrugs.

“I never wanted to learn,” Malfoy tells him, and the way he says it makes it seem like the words are new. Like he’s never tasted them in his mouth before, never let them fall from his lips.

“Oh.”

Everything is so different in the night — washed away, because they can later pass this off for a dream. So Malfoy talks, the words spilling forth as easily as music. “It’s a pureblood thing, you know. I’m supposed to be well-versed in esteemed practices. Apparently, that included piano. They made me play at galas. I hated it.”

Harry takes in the information with nothing more than mild curiosity. “Then why are you playing now?”

Malfoy shrugs, and he sits down. “I have nothing better to do. I like playing when it’s not for other people.”

“Then I’m sorry I intruded,” Harry says, although he isn’t.

“I don’t care,” Malfoy says, and Harry wonders if he does.

There are fewer colors in the dark, and it makes it harder to read cues. Although Harry doubts he would be able to understand even by light.

“Do you always come here? At night?”

Malfoy shrugs again. “Sometimes. Do you?”

“No. I walk around the castle. I can’t sleep.”

“Nobody really can anymore,” Malfoy says quietly. He draws his knees up to his chest, hugging them close, wrapped around himself in the same way that Harry always is. A barricade against the world.

“Do you have nightmares too, then?”

“No. You can’t have nightmares if you don’t sleep.”

Harry frowns.

“Music makes the world feel not quite so real,” Malfoy continues. “It doesn’t matter if people died or if I’m evil, you know? It’s just music, so I can forget the rest of the world exists. Music can’t be evil and neither can I while I’m making it.”

“So you avoid everything.”

“Is that not what you’re doing?” Malfoy asks, nodding around the room. “Running around the castle while everyone’s asleep?”

Harry shrugs. He doesn’t bother analyzing it.

He’s tired.

“Will you play some more?” Harry asks, nodding towards the piano, and Malfoy gives him a strange look. “Please,” Harry adds for good measure, although he isn’t sure it will make a difference.

Finally, Malfoy dips his head in assent. “Okay,” he says simply, and he sits back down.

He presses his fingers against the keyboard, and the rain resumes, washing away everything that’s crowding out Harry’s brain.

It’s fitting, somehow. This new Malfoy seems strangely similar to him: still but moving, placid but insistent. A mixture of chaos and calm. Like spring rain, like his music, like Harry. Quiet, but fierce in his own way.

Harry finds that he prefers this whirlwind-like state to true calm or true chaos. And, he reckons, maybe that’s okay.

Maybe, just maybe, it’s easier if they avoid the world together.

All they want is rain, in the end.

**Author's Note:**

> This story/art is part of an anonymous fest: drizzle 2019. Reveals will be in mid-october. Please do not repost anywhere else without explicit permission from the original creator.


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